Local students lag significantly behind top scorers in Singapore on creative thinking

Macau students lagged significantly behind the leading students in Singapore in a worldwide study on creative thinking.

In its first assessment of creative thinking, the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) found that 15-year-old students in Macau fell below the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average.

In the report, most regions and economies that scored above the OECD average in creative thinking outperformed the OECD average in mathematics, reading and science.

Only Portugal performed above the OECD average in creative thinking (34 points) but not significantly different from the average in the three PISA core domains.

“The Czech Republic, Hong Kong (China), Macau (China), and Taipei performed at or below the OECD average in creative thinking despite scoring above the OECD average in mathematics, reading, and science,” the report stated.

In mathematics, Singapore scored significantly higher than all other regions in mathematics (575 points) and, along with Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Macau, and Taiwan, outperformed all other economies in mathematics.

Another 17 economies also performed above the OECD average (472 points), ranging from Estonia (510 points) to New Zealand (479 points).

An average of 69% of students are at least basically proficient in mathematics in OECD regions. This means they are beginning to demonstrate the ability and initiative to use mathematics in simple real-life situations, the report stated.

In reading and science, Singapore also scored significantly higher than all other regions in reading (543 points) and science (561 points).

Behind Singapore, Ireland performed as well as Estonia, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, while another 14 education systems performed above the OECD average in reading (476 points), ranging from Macau (510 points) to Italy (482 points).

In science, the highest-performing education systems were Singapore, Japan, Macau, Taiwan, Korea, Estonia, Hong Kong and Canada.

Four regions and economies are bucking this trend of long-term decline: Colombia, Macau, Peru and Qatar.

“Their results have improved on average in all three subjects over the full period they have participated in PISA. Four other countries (Israel, Moldova, Singapore and Türkiye) have improved in two out of three subjects,” the report stated.

In terms of equity in education systems, Macau is considered highly equitable by PISA’s standards, along with Canada, Denmark, Finalnd, Hong Kong and Japan, among other regions.